She drinks a lot, Winter has realized. He’s known it from the moment they met, but it’s her chosen lifestyle. She’s a party drinker. It livens her up. It was too early in the relationship to say anything about it, back then. As time has gone by, his desire to mention it has dissipated as his desire to hold onto her increases. He doesn’t like her when she’s drunk. Now he tolerates her.
‘Wanna help me pick something sexy to wear?’ she asks with a grin.
He can’t deny that she is beautiful when she smiles like that. Mischievous. Devilish. ‘I think you’re a better judge than I am,’ he says quietly. He quickly worries that he’s set the wrong tone, that she might think him miserable. ‘I think you look great as you are.’ That’s the right tone. She and the friend laugh, and the friend says she bets he does. ‘I’m going to grab something to eat,’ he’s telling them now, recognizing that the time has come for him to make an exit. They want to carry on dressing up. ‘You two want anything?’ They both say no, they’re fine. He knows they don’t need anything to eat because they’ve been drinking for more than an hour already, and plan to keep on drinking.
He makes himself a bacon roll. Nothing much – if they’re going to be out all night, then he doesn’t want much on his stomach. He sighs more often than is healthy as he makes himself a cup of tea to go with it. He had started the relationship on the wrong foot. Having realized that he was allowing himself to be the junior partner, he should have bailed out early. It was fear and desperation that had allowed things to roll on, and now it feels like it’s too late. It would seem as if he was trying to change her. She would argue that she’d given so much of her life to him, and he has no right to try to push her to be someone else. He sees other men making these relationships work. It’s a fact of life in the trade that there are women around. He knows men who happily bounce from one woman to another, never losing sleep over losing a woman. He knows others who are married, but know how to have fun. They all seem so much better at it than he is.
He’s cleaning up after himself when Zara comes down for another bottle of wine and to tell him that a couple more of her friends are going to come to the house before they head into the city. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’ she asks so sweetly.
‘Course not,’ he answers quietly.
She has a top on, but is still in just her underpants. She pushes up against him and kisses him passionately. ‘It’ll be fun,’ she smiles, ‘I promise.’ She takes another bottle of wine and goes back upstairs.
He doesn’t doubt that it’ll be fun for her. It always is. He tries to remember the last time they did anything that was designed to be fun for him, and he can’t.
16
Calum is sitting on his couch, playing video games. Gran Turismo 5, if you care. He enjoys it, despite his racing deficiencies. He glances at the clock. It’s now ticked past five o’clock. He can feel the nerves starting to tickle at the bottom of his stomach. It doesn’t matter how many times you do the job. It certainly doesn’t matter how good you are at it. If you’re anywhere close to being a normal human being, then you’re going to be nervous about it. In a few hours’ time he is going to head out into the night and murder a man. It looks like a simple job. He knows he’s good at what he does. Doesn’t matter. You’re taking a man’s life, and that’s worth being nervous about.
Six o’clock. He switches the machine off. Find things to do. He won’t be leaving his own flat until after ten. He and George will head to Winter’s house after eleven and check it. If there’s no sign of life, they’ll leave and come back again after midnight. Calum’s confident they won’t be home by then. So he and George will sit and wait. There’s four hours before he does anything at all. Into the kitchen. Open the fridge. Get something to eat. Not much – the nerves won’t allow it to settle. He looks at what’s there. Very little. Not much of a foodie. He takes out a packet of bacon, switches on the cooker. There’s fresh bread in; he’ll have a bacon sandwich and a cup of tea.
Twenty past seven. He’s putting the TV on, but there’s nothing he can settle down to watch. So hard to settle to anything. He needs to kill time. Another two and a half hours before he leaves the flat. He walks round the flat. There’s too much energy in him. You don’t want to be bursting with that nervous energy when the time of the job comes; you’re much more likely to make a mistake. Some people have ways of expending the energy. Calum knows one gunman who swears by sex before any job. The best sex you’ll ever have, apparently. Even if that fellow can’t find a young lady to share his exuberance with, he will satisfy himself. Anything to kill the nerves. Calum won’t accept that. Worse than energy is the opposite. He knows he makes a lot more mistakes when he’s tired and lethargic than he does when he’s on the edge.
Pacing the little flat. Starting to feel a little tired in the legs. He knows he has to do something. He’s left getting changed until the last minute, making sure he has something to do. A pair of black jeans, a plain black top. Both items bought months – maybe more than a year – ago. Never been worn before, will never be worn again. They’ll be carefully placed in someone else’s general rubbish bin. Not a recycling one. Then they end up in landfill. There are some who put the clothes into charity shops. Some places have large recycling bins, usually outside supermarkets, where you can drop off old clothes. Some people use those. Calum can’t abide the idea of the clothes still being out there, possibly with his DNA on them. Long shot that they would ever be found, but still a risk he won’t take.
He has two balaclavas. These are difficult. You don’t want to be seen buying balaclavas regularly. It goes without saying that it carries risk. A few years ago he bought a boxful over the Internet. He had them sent to the house of a friend, went and picked them up. It’s a risk, always. You buy something that almost only has criminal use. You buy them on a false card. You have them sent to an address where the occupant will happily claim to have ordered no such thing. You then keep the box hidden in the loft of your mother’s house, without telling her it’s there. It would concern her. She would want to know what you were doing with them. Awkward questions. He had taken three from the box a month or so ago, guessing that he might need one soon. He needed two. George won’t have one of his own.
Not every job requires dressing up. Sometimes you’re sure there will be no witnesses. Sometimes there’s no risk in letting them see your face. Sometimes they need to see your face before you can get close to them. This isn’t one of those times. There will be witnesses. Those witnesses will be interviewed by the police. Every precaution must be taken. Calum knows that, and he trusts George to be professional enough to know it as well. No talking inside the house. No sloppy mistakes that could lead to identification.
Calum stuffs the two balaclavas into his pocket. A man dressed all in black, with the ability to hide his face. If he were stopped by the police, in a car that didn’t belong to him, he would be caught. Caught with a gun, and he would be looking at a mandatory jail term anyway. The journey to and from work is treacherous for the men in his business. He removes the guns from their hiding place, sliding shut the vent on the chimney. He’s always careful not to disturb the little layer of dust on the top of the vent, convinced that it might give the impression that it’s never been touched. They would be able to tell, he told himself. If they really looked, they could tell. Don’t ever give them a reason to look at you. That’s why working for someone like Jamieson is a risk. Being close to an organization that is surely being watched means you will be watched. That flash of doubt runs though his mind again.
He’s left the living-room light on in the flat, left the television on. Not too loud – just loud enough to be heard if you pressed your ear to the front door. He’s getting into the car now. He’s still unfamiliar with it, isn’t comfortable driving it. It seems to want to lurch forward when you first press the accelerator, and then there’s no power to get it up to speed. He’s not going to race to the meeting point with George, so speed is no concern. It’s the threat of
stalling at traffic lights and being asked by a passing cop if you need help. The threat of being involved in some minor accident because you don’t have full control of the car. Anything that might draw attention.
Calum’s picking George up from a building site. It’s a random meeting place where they know there are no security cameras. You don’t pick up from home – that’s a risk. You pick up somewhere random. You pick up somewhere that you won’t be seen. George drops into the passenger seat.
‘Nice motor,’ he’s saying with a smile. It’s the sort of small, gutless vehicle that an old lady would drive. Nothing to draw attention.
‘Nice enough,’ Calum says in response. They pull out onto the street and head towards Winter’s house. Calum’s glancing at the clock. It’s nearly eleven o’clock; it’ll be a little after by the time they get there. He’s expecting the house to be in darkness. He’s hoping it will be. No surprises. Please, no surprises.
17
He needs to sit down. He doesn’t care if it makes him look old, he needs to sit down. His legs feel like they’re on fire; he can feel how red his face is. The sweat is pouring through his greying hair, making it stick to his forehead. The headache from the thumping music is now so familiar that he hardly notices it. He can scarcely imagine his life without it. He goes to the bar first. Another bottle of beer. Expensive, but he doesn’t care. It’s all that’s keeping him going right now. Winter is just drunk enough to keep his patience. Just miserable enough not to be angry. He finds a little empty table off to the side and sits at it. Long gulps of beer. How many bottles so far? Who cares?
Occasionally the movement of the dancers in front of him will create a little gap through which he can see her. She’s still dancing with the same man. The friends they arrived with have all splintered off in other directions; some have already left. Winter has tried to keep up with her, to stay close. Even that has been to no avail. Some young buck with a head full of styling gel and big ideas danced his way across to her. He didn’t even have to say anything. He just started dancing close to her. Winter stuck around for ten humiliating minutes and then went for a beer.
There are men in the business who know how to handle slick young men like him. They would let him dance away with the young lady all he wanted. They would wait for the man to leave the club, and follow him out. Then they would kick the shit out of him. Put him in hospital. Scar him for life. That would get the message across. They were no doormats. He is. This kid – twenty-two or twenty-three – walked up to his girl and made him look pathetic. It made him angry. Another bottle of beer. Back to the table. He hasn’t felt this anger rise in him before. The more he drinks, the more convinced he becomes that the anger is a good thing.
A couple of dancers move away. He has a good view of her now. She’s pressed up against this young man. He’s whispering in her ear. She’s laughing. She has her arms round his neck, dancing as if they’re the only ones in the room. They look like young lovers. His hand moves down. It rests on her bottom. She doesn’t appear to notice, still dancing. She’s still moving her back end as if his hand isn’t groping it, Winter thinks sourly. How many people here know that she and I live together? How many people have I been humiliated in front of? Again. Hardly the first time. A man half his age. Making her smile in a way that he can’t.
He wants to get up, to go over there. Say something? Maybe. Maybe just pull her away from him and make her dance with her partner for a change. She wouldn’t understand. She’d say he was making a scene. She’d say that he was humiliating her. Him humiliating her. What a laugh. She’d say it, though. And she’d believe it. How can they not be exhausted? He just wants to go home. Another bottle of beer. Expensive. Complain? Nah, just drink. Obliterate everything. Destroy the world and then you don’t have to be in it any more. Let them have their fun. Let them have their world. There is no fun for him. No place for him. What time is it? He can’t remember to look at his watch. Timeless.
Someone comes across to the table. A woman. Not as young as Zara. Not as pretty. This woman is in her thirties. She’s trying too hard. Her hair dyed to within an inch of its life. A tan that certainly wasn’t acquired courtesy of the Glasgow sunshine. She’s dressed in clothes that Zara would wear. It flatters Zara; her body’s more attractive than the little clothing that covers it. That isn’t the case for this woman. Less is more doesn’t apply.
‘You on your own?’ she asks Winter, sitting down beside him. She looks sympathetic. She looks desperate for affection.
Winter puts his hand out and presses it on top of hers. Be a gentleman. A woman who cares. It doesn’t matter if she’s not perfect. Why did you ever think you deserved perfect? Why did you kid yourself that you could keep perfect?
The woman talks for a couple of minutes. She isn’t as drunk as he is, but she is drunk enough that it takes her two minutes to realize that he’s barely capable of speech any more. She sighs. Another bust. He had looked sweaty, but presentable. A man of an age that she might appeal to.
‘I’m gonna go,’ she says to him, patting his hand.
‘No. Go. Not you too. She treats me that way. Not you.’
The woman sighs again. Another complete loser. She really can pick them out of a crowd. It isn’t even a joke any more. Oh well, one consolation: she isn’t the most pathetic specimen in the place. There’s always someone worse off.
Had he fallen asleep? He isn’t sure. It feels as though something has changed. Time has leapt ahead without him. No, couldn’t have been asleep. How could he have slept with that noise? Not possible. The woman has gone. A woman came across and sat with him. Now she’s gone. Or had he dreamed that? A nice woman. A woman who cared. It must have been a dream. There was no such thing in his life. Only when he slept. Perhaps he had slept. He looks across the dance floor. Is Zara kissing him? Both his hands are on her backside. Winter gets up from the table. Go over and say something. Go on. Tell them both what you think. Give that little shit a good thrashing. Make him look pathetic, instead of you. Let her see that you’re every bit as much a man as that little prick. The bar is closer. One more bottle of beer.
He has no idea of time. He knows that he needs to go to the toilet. He gets up and looks about. Strobe lighting. His legs are weak. He sits back down. He can hold it until they get home. Surely it won’t be long until they go home. What time is it? If only there was some way of finding out. People are dancing in front of him. He can’t see her any more. She’ll still be there. Dancing all night. Dancing with another man. Kissing another man. She will take the other man home. Winter knows it. She will insist on taking him home. Back for ‘drinks’. As per bloody usual. This time he’ll say no. This time he’ll put his foot down.
18
His name is Stewart. She doesn’t know what his surname is. They had gone over to the other side of the dance floor and found a seat. They sat for ten minutes, chatted. He seemed nice. Not as stupid as most. He bought her drinks. He ran his hand up her leg. She let him. After dancing again, it was he who suggested they go home.
‘Sure,’ she was saying, ‘we can go back to my place. I live with someone, but he doesn’t mind. I’ll tell him you’re coming back for drinks. He’ll go to bed. He’s over there. Come on, we’ll get him and get a taxi.’
Zara is leading Stewart across the floor by the hand to the table where she had seen Winter. She had seen him go over there nearly a couple of hours ago. He had been drinking a lot, and he doesn’t hold his drink well these days.
He looks pathetic, sitting at that table by himself, surrounded by beer bottles. He looks like a sad old man, sitting in the wrong establishment. He’s an embarrassment to her. He looks half-asleep. She sits beside him and nudges him aggressively.
‘Lewis, this is Stewart, he’s coming back to the house for drinks. It’s time to go. Get up.’
She looks up at Stewart and shakes her head. He sympathizes. This pretty girl is living with a drunkard. No wonder she needs to cut loose and enjoy herself. He probably tre
ats her like dirt. Drunks are so selfish. The old man mumbles something. He’s obviously trying to sound forceful, but he manages a sentence that contains only vowels and some spit.
‘For God’s sake,’ Zara says loudly. ‘Help me with him, will you?’ she asks Stewart pleadingly. Helping is the decent thing to do.
He’s nearly able to support himself, he just needs to be pointed in the right direction and occasionally rebalanced. Stewart walks on one side of him, Zara on the other. She seems angry; it seems to Stewart that the promised entertainment probably isn’t going to happen now. She hasn’t said so, so he stays with her. Besides, how would it look if he left her with this drunk and didn’t even make sure that she got home okay? You have to have some standards. A taxi is pulling up alongside them. Zara helps Winter get into the back. She leads Stewart round the other side and they get in. Stewart finds himself between the two of them. He’s looking at this Lewis. He’s not as old as he had seemed in the club, but he’s too old for Zara. Perhaps they’re not a couple. Perhaps they just live together. Best not to pry. The lives of others.
‘He okay?’ the driver’s asking, looking back at Winter. He’s worried that he might throw up.
‘He’s fine,’ Zara’s telling him forcefully, and she gives him the street name.
As they’re driving through the city centre, Stewart is watching Winter. The older man is struggling to stay awake. He seems determined to stay awake, but also determined not to look at any of them. His half-open eyes are staring out the window, his head bobbing slowly up and down. What a dreadful thing to have to live with. Then Stewart’s feeling her hand on his thigh, just moving up and down, nothing more yet. He turns and looks at her. She too is staring out the window, not apparently focusing on anything. She seems serene. She seems unaware of where her hand is. Then it moves up, and it’s on his crotch. There’s a light grip, and a massaging. She’s still staring out the window. The promised entertainment remains a solid promise.
The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter (Glasgow Trilogy) Page 7